Kurt Machinist Mill Vise Repair

[Music] hello keith rocker here at venice machinery.org guys today i got a little project i'm working on for a buddy of mine al kimball who has a shop up in middle georgia that i've become good friends with and we kind of help each other out from time to time on various stuff he's got some equipment in his shop that i don't have and occasionally i'll ask him to do some stuff for me and in return he asked me to do something for him which i am going to see if i can help him out on he has a curt vice here that uh has got issues it's frozen up it's not working and he wanted me to see if i could do something with it and get it back to going i don't know what i'm going to get in on this i have worked on some of these curve vices before i restored one that i use in the shop regularly sometime back to the whole video series on that um i don't know that we're going to do a full-blown restoration on this the the main objective here is to get this vice where it's functioning again so uh let's get in here and see if we can figure out what's going on with it see if it's something that we can uh uh fix with it on it i mean this vice has obviously seen some some work uh you can tell that it's had some milling done in some places on it where the machines got into it hopefully we can salvage it let's see what we can do with it so the main problem i see with this vise is is that someone has run the jaw all the way back and it is it's it's just not wanting to adjust in it's it's jammed in here so i'm going to take a lead hammer a wrench and we're just going to shock it see if i can break that nut loose without breaking anything hopefully someone just ran it back they may have been using the impact wrench or something like that and just jammed it that's kind of what i'm hoping let's see what you get here got a little movement got a little movement all right something's happening all right this is moving although rather tight that's uh let's see what we can do here now we got broke loose i'm going to cheat and use an impact on it myself getting tired again getting tight again this may have oh my word the screws may be bad in this thing let's see we can do wow tell you what i'm going to go ahead and pull these jaws off and just start taking it down a little bit see if i can see what's going on a little bit better all right let's go ahead and take the back one off too while we're at it all right i got the big impact out here and it's like it goes right there and it hangs up i don't know what's going on so here's my game plan is uh we're going to remove the fixed jaw on the end and take this retaining ring out and hopefully the whole assembly can slide out and i can look at this from the bottom and see if there's i can see anything going on so let's uh get this fixed jaw off and the way to get that off is you flip this thing over and you got two big allen cap screws down here that just go in and attach that to the front so let's see we can not get those off tell you what since i got the impact gun out we'll take advantage of it and use it i got a socket there that fits that one pull that out get the other one all right here is a little lock ring that goes on right there flip this back over and the pry bar here here we go and you see that fix jaw it's got two keys in there these keys are milled into the bottom of the fixed jaw but that is off and now uh normally what you would do is just unscrew this whole screw and this whole assembly would just come out the end with that on there it's captured in is captured in on this end about casting here and your retaining ring so there is a little spiral uh retaining ring right there let me see if i can get that out let's see here there's uh this is a unusual retaining ring it's a spiral there we go and if you look at it right here you can see it's kind of a spring looking thing but this whole assembly will come out now and let's uh take it all out all right so now there's a set screw that goes into this and goes up and kind of captures this uh whole nut or that piece back here this kind of moves a little bit i want to disassemble that so we'll pull that set screw out um our cap screw there we go i think i'm going to take this over to the parts washer and clean it up and then we'll see if we can get that get the screw out of that uh big block there all right guys i've got this thing out and just like we were able to do before it's it's turning in part of the range here but then it just gets to a point and about right in here let's see yeah there it's starting to get tight right there it won't go past it this screw should come all the way out and what you've got up inside of this is a nut that that screw i believe is acme threads down in here farther and you got a section in there that that thing just moves up and down on it's my my theory is is something has happened to the threads on the rod and it's not allowed to go through the nut when you get to a certain point it's just freezing it up so unfortunately without getting the rod completely out i can't inspect it i can't really make a new rod or anything like that i can't get the thing out but we do have another option and i've talked to to al the guy who's this is i think we can go that route so let me show you what that is so i went to um the curt website and looked up their model uh what was this model d6 675 and uh in there they sell a whole nut and screw sub assembly that basically you can just swap this whole thing out 141 but i talked to the guy he said yeah just go ahead and order him a new one and swap it out and get the device back going basically his comment was is he can't buy a whole device for 141 dollars and he needs it to go on a machine so that's what we're going to do i'm going to get that ordered and when it comes in we'll put this thing back together and get it back down to them but anyway i thought i'd show you that that's going to be my best solution to this problem is to just go ahead and replace that whole sub assembly even in the area where it's moving there's a lot of wiggle room and play in there that vise has got a lot of wear on it and i think the best thing to do is just put a new one in there and this thing will be at least mechanically like a brand new one i think what i'm going to do i've put these over to the parts washer and just kind of got them degreased and got all the junk off of them i'm going to take these out and just let them soak overnight in my vapor rust tank and i thought i'd do just a quick before shot and uh we'll see what it does we'll see how it improves this surface there's a little bit of rust on some of this stuff we'll see what a soaking evapo rust does to improve this all right guys so we let this soak overnight in the ovapo rust i pulled it out i just took a scotch brite pad just gently rubbed it to kind of get anything loose off of it rinsed it off in the sink and you see what we got nice clean castings may have actually picked up a little bit of flash rust on it since uh it's been a couple of days since i've done it but no big deal uh i probably just should have gone ahead and painted this but i'm i'm this is i'm just trying to get it back together for for al so i didn't really bother doing that but if he wants to take it apart and paint it he's surely well can it's pretty much ready for paint right now so my part did come in so we'll unbox that in just a minute but before we do i'm gonna go ahead and get some flat stones and just kind of hit these slides and knock off any birds that may be on there so let's do that real quick so just some precision ground flat stones and i feel a few burrs nothing terrible i can see some shiny spots there so that ought to rub real nice and smooth now while i'm at it let me go ahead and hit these surfaces as well again i feel a few little high spots and i see some shiny areas developing so this ought to rub together a lot nicer and we'll go ahead and hit that inside as well [Applause] okay i think this is probably ready to go back together so let's check out our part that came in and make sure that that's what we need and we'll slap this thing back together so i ordered this part i guess it was over the weekend and this is actually a thursday evening this came in sometime today while i was out at work but uh kurt had it shipped out on monday i ordered over the weekend when they were not there so a quick turnaround so i get our parts out of here the missing part or the bad part that we had got a new screw here there we go look at that nice and pretty and we got a repair kit with new uh bearings and seals and everything else so we don't have to reuse all that old stuff all right i got all my parts and pieces over here so i think i'm going to do is go ahead and i'm going to start by just putting a screw in i'm going to put a little bit of grease on these threads just a little bit to get some lube up in there and we'll go ahead and feed this in of course this is our new block a new screw everything looks good this uh this piece here is a little bit different than the original one the original one is a little bit longer and it's sealed on the end this one here the end actually comes out but evidently they don't make the older style anymore and this one works just fine uh on this vise it's basically the same like i said to set them just a little bit longer so it keeps that nut completely covered up not a big deal i don't think we haven't started threading yet there we go i think we got it now yeah there's a little brush looking thing that goes on the ends of these that kind of keeps that screw clean and i wasn't quite engaged in there but we are now i'm just going to use this driver here to just kind of speed things up there we go now there is an o-ring that goes on right here there's a little groove and that kind of helps keep the moisture from coming out of this piece up front and hang on before we go on there's one of these washer looking pieces that slides on next then there's a thrust bearing and i think i'm gonna put just a little bit of this teflon grease on that as well just a touch thrust bearing and then there's another one of these backer plates and that those washers kind of work with that thrust bearing there to let it work properly now this all slides up underneath the bottom again just a little light grease on there we'll slide this on up in here that o-ring is going to actually uh push up into that and create a seal we need to come on in there a little bit more [Music] all right there we go and then turn this around on this side you got another washer piece and you got that groove and here's that little spring thing we took apart a while ago this is a new one that came in that kit so we'll go ahead and get that put in there as well let me uh get a little screwdriver to kind of open it up all right let me get in here with a screwdriver kind of get that separated this thing is aggravating if i remember this on the last one i did there's probably a trick to it and i just don't know it uh basically we gotta get that thing expanded and up over that and then it'll drop down in that that ring back there in the back all right i got it started there there it goes and that dropped right down in there and that looks good okay all right so next there's a little kind of a half of a ball bearing piece and it fits in a little recess in there that lets it kind of move around and then that flat catches on the bottom side of this hook right here and that's what basically comes in contact between this piece that moves back and forth and the jaw so what i'm going to do is first again we're just going to take a little bit of grease and i'm not putting a lot but you know just something to give me a little bit of lube in there for right now and then down here in that socket i'm going to take a a nice little clump of grease and the main reason i'm doing that is this grease will kind of help hold that ball in place it gives it something to kind of stick to whenever i flip it over on here so it doesn't fall out so let's uh just kind of drop that down in there there we go so once you get it in place there's a set screw right here in the back and that tightens this whole jaw assembly together up against that ball you want to get that good and tight now this jaw should be moving with the rest of it there and it is all right now we'll put our fixed jaw back in place back here remember this has the keys and then on the bottom we got a couple of socket cap screws that hold it in place i'll just turn the whole vice over upside down [Music] i'm just going to use my impact to put those in place snug and then tighten them down all right that fixed jaw it is fixed and we put our jaws back in ideally i probably need to take these to the surface grinder and grind them but honestly i know he's going to be using this on a cnc machine and more than likely he'll be putting soft jaws in here and machining them for whatever part run these parties running so i'm not going to worry about it too much get one of these uh sockets with the ball end in it [Applause] helps uh get those in there and with that i think our vice is back together and in working operational condition once again there we go all right mission accomplished well there we go one rebuilt curt vice i won't call it restored uh although it carry well could have been when i have restored some of these for myself you know about the only difference i do is i will give them a shot of paint i'll regrind the jaws i have on occasion even reground these beds and the tops of the plate here on the surface grinder just to make sure everything's nice and perfect honestly this one here other than you know i might have welded that up and and ground and milled it back in just so it looked nicer but uh you know no big deal the uh the fake jaws on here these are replaceable uh i i if this had been mine i probably would have reground them but like i said he's probably gonna swap them out anyway so i'm just not gonna spend any time on them and you can just order a new set i mean that's what most people do and these have had some uh end mills get into these uh before which is not unusual on a i imagine this was on a cnc mill at some point in time and uh it had a couple of times where the program didn't program out just right no big deal but i'm actually headed back up to al kimball's place tomorrow uh he has cut out a couple of parts for me on his plasma cam that i need for my planer restoration and uh so i'm gonna run up to to dublin drop this thing off with him and uh pick up my parts and hopefully be home before lunchtime tomorrow that's my game plan and he'll be back in business and i'll be back in business as well i'll be able to continue on my planer project that i got going on i'll take that one back to him it's pretty much garbage but uh he might want to hang on to it or he can throw it in scrap bin whatever he wants to do with that guys that's a wrap as always thanks for watching please do subscribe to the channel if you haven't already thumbs up and comments are appreciated hit the bell icon up there to get notifications if you haven't already please subscribe with that guys we'll catch on next video as always thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Keith Rucker - VintageMachinery.org

Views: 46,525

Rating: 4.9308019 out of 5

Keywords: Machine Shop, Machinist, Lathe, Milling Machine, Restoration, Vintage Machinery, Georgia Museum of Agriculture, Woodworking, Metalworking, How to run a lathe, how to run a mill, Keith Rucker, VintageMachinery.org

Id: TuI9ls0a5KY

Length: 23min 44sec (1424 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 09 2021